


more than begin (less than forget)

by 24bookworm68



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Drinking to Cope, Excessive Cursing, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, M/M, References to Drugs, Self-Injurous Stimming, Taako loves his family So Much and he's gonna bake for six hours to prove it, Taako's anxious/depressed autistic culture now goodnight, it's minor but i know that triggers some people, not super shippy Kravitz is just there and Taako loves him a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 16:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13415076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24bookworm68/pseuds/24bookworm68
Summary: Taako and food and love and the intersections thereof - twenty snapshots.





	more than begin (less than forget)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so. I wrote this in the space of two days and it's the first fic I've published in like two years. Thanks taz. A lot of the food preferences of other characters are based on either people I know and associate with the given character, or headcanons that other people have, and I'll go into more detail with that at the end, where I posted a few recipe notes because I, too, am a wizard and a chef. That said: hope you all enjoy my Taako Feelings.

i.

_ Madame Director _

So, you wouldn’t say this, but: candlenights is sort of, kind of,  _ maybe _ , the first time you’ve actually sat down and cooked since Glamour Springs.

Not that it’s important, or whatever, but, just, it’s - a little liquid courage because everybody gets drunk on candlenights but not too much because you don’t want to be careless, find the line where your hands don’t shake and live there.

Anyway, not that you care or anything, but you’re apparently a little bit expected to get people presents, and, like, you’re a cheap bastard and what’s the point of having skills if you can’t use them to get out of spending money on people, really -

\- it’s not because of the caravan days, it really isn’t, it’s not because you’ve spent more years homeless and broke than not,  _ really _ \- 

\- anyway, whatever, you made cookies because it’s traditional and you made macarons because you’re  _ extra _ , so. So.

( _ Here’s a secret, you made macarons because you were brainstorming ideas and you thought of the Director and you could practically  _ taste _ elderberry, okay, you don’t know why, you think your own self-imposed cooking ban is making you better at guessing people’s preferences, you’ve managed to guess Magnus and Merle’s orders at every restaurant you’ve gone to since you started traveling together. _ ) 

So, anyway, it’s candlenights and you’re pulling out the Director’s present and the look in her eyes is - for just a second - startled,  _ alarmed _ , and it kicks off the panic in your chest, and you almost drop the plate. She hasn’t even tasted one yet, you’re overreacting,  _ you’re overreacting, Taako _ , what kind of absolute goddamn dickhead is  _ traumatized  _ by an incident where he killed forty people,  _ seriously _ . 

It’s gone as soon as you recognize it. You probably imagined it.

Get your shit together.

“I’ll take a run at it,” says the Director, and you must be drunker than you thought, drunk off a couple sips of rum, what are you  _ thirty _ \- because your vision wavers as you look at her hand, makes it look like it trembles. She looks you in the eye and just looks. Weird.

But hey, she likes it, she’s asking for baking tips, whatever,  _ you’re being paranoid, Taako _ , you’re a paranoid piece of shit, what else is new. Get your shit together.

You forget about it, in the fuss that follows, in getting the world’s weirdest candlenights present from whoever, in  _ apparently the world is ending _ , and you pass all that cookie weirdness and the freaked-out cold feeling in your stomach when you hear the name  _ Lucretia _ for the first time off on the drinking and the cooking and on you being you.

ii.

_ Magnus Burnsides _

So, um.

You don’t know who the fuck Julia is, but Magnus has been… moping. Which is weird, because Magnus is horrifically, painfully cheerful, like,  _ all the time _ . Almost. Like, in a way that in most people you would find violence-inducing but with Magnus it’s just mildly irritating. It’s like you’ve been used to him since the day you met which, whatever, he’s got one of those faces. Voices. Personalities. Everybody feels like they’ve known Magnus forever.

Anyway: Magnus is sad and you’re not, like,  _ emotionally invested _ or whatever, but when the happy one’s moping around it brings everybody’s mood down and, what, are  _ you _ gonna have to try and be a force for cheer or whatever the fuck? Gross.

Anyway, it’s the night  _ after  _ the whole thing with Lucas Miller’s lab and the really cute grim reaper dude and Merle’s holed up in his room on grounds of  _ “My arm’s gone you fuckin jackass” _ or something, and Magnus is in the common area and he looks -

Well.

You plonk a mug down in front of him and feel pretty damn good about yourself when you don’t pick it back up immediately, and he looks up at you and blinks twice, “...What’s this?”

“Hot chocolate, Mango, what’s it look like,” you snark back, throw yourself into the chair across from him with a spiteful vengeance, sipping at your own mug like you’re not a little sick of hot chocolate after drinking half the pot just in case. You’re just cautious, you can’t kill anybody else, it’s not like you’re attached or anything.

“ _ Why _ ,” he says, exasperated. His eyes are red-rimmed. You think maybe he’s out here because if he stays by himself he’s gonna have a bad time. 

“I made too much,” you lie, casually, because you’d gone through the mental math of how making one mug would make it seem like you’d made it just for him and two wouldn’t give you one to test just to make sure you hadn’t fucked it up and then you needed another one to drink while you waited to make sure you hadn’t accidentally put  _ slow-releasing _ poison in it, because, obviously. So really, you made just enough, even if it is sitting like a rock in your stomach. “Can’t just let  _ my cooking _ go to waste, people pay top dollar for that shit.”

Magnus snorts and you know, instantly, that he knows you’re full of shit, and it makes something in your chest  _ twist _ so you gulp down most of your mug to have an excuse not to look at him for a minute, and when you put it down he’s just. Holding his own, looking at it with this little pinch in his eyebrows.

And then he shrugs, and tosses it back.

And then he just  _ looks _ at you. It’s kind of like the look the Director -  _ Lucretia  _ \- gave you when she tasted her macaron, surprised but not. It’s uncomfortable, like it’s making your brain itch, and you need him to  _ stop _ . “Hey, Mango Sunrise, what’s that look for.”

There’s a pause - weighty, which is  _ ridiculous _ , because you’re two people who barely know each other, despite all the things you’ve survived together in the last couple months, drinking cocoa at ass o’clock in the morning,  _ get your shit together _ . “Why do you keep calling me Mango?” he asks, in this tone of voice that makes it sound like it matters, even though it really doesn’t.

“...I dunno, I just came up with it. Drink your cocoa,” you grumble, and follow your own advice.

Silence.

“Are these marshmallows homemade?” Magnus asks, and he sounds… more like he usually does. Less… something.

“Nah,” you lie.

iii.

_ Angus McDonald _

The macarons were unbelievably shitty, but you still feel, like, a  _ little _ bad that they got burnt up.

Also, you’ve felt real fucked up since that whole thing, with the umbrastaff going crazy, with weirdass words on the wall, especially after the Red Robe in the lab and -

- _ YOU FOUND HER?! _ -

\- Mmm, yeah, anyways. That. Something weird’s up.

And it seems like even  _ killing forty people, for fuck’s sake, _ can’t kick your stress-baking habit, so, here you are, umbrastaff pointedly out of arm’s reach, anything you could possibly use as a spell focus  _ out of reach _ . Angus seems like the sweet bread type. Maybe a puff pastry - a little lemon, or maybe orange, hmm. It’s not as easy to suss out his preferences as it is with the boys. He could probably get  _ down _ on some ears, though.

Not that you’re, like,  _ excited _ to make baked goods for Angus McDonald, whatever, it’s just that you like showing off and… with the exception of candlenights, it’s been a  _ while _ since somebody told you how good your baking was. Validation and attention are to you as water and sunlight are to an orchid. 

You haven’t done puff pastry in forever, you barely remembered how  _ long _ it takes to do right - that’s what you’re thinking, when you turn back from the icebox and Angus snuck in without you noticing and he’s got a hand near his face and all you can think is  _ no no no no no _ .

And your hand flies toward him, still holding a spoon - and there’s a flash of light - and  _ his _ hand flies to the side, he gives a little cry of pain and he’s looking at you with these big wide alarmed eyes and you didn’t test it, you didn’t think you did anything wrong but you didn’t test it and he tasted the batter stuck to the edges of the bowl and you did it, you poisoned Angus McDonald, and now you have to run because this kid who never did anything wrong except believe in you is gonna die because you’re a  _ worthless piece of shit fuck up asshole _ .

“Sir,” says Angus, timidly, “I didn’t touch anything. I wouldn’t, I know you don’t -”

He didn’t touch anything.

Oh thank fuck, oh thank fuck,  _ oh thank fuck _ . He didn’t touch anything, he didn’t eat anything, you didn’t kill Angus, you’re barking an awful, strangled cough of a laugh, leaning back against the counter, you bring your hand up so you can touch the back of it against your mouth -

\- spoon. The spoon. You can use the spoon as a spellcasting focus. Of course you can. You thought you were being careful but you - you have a weirder relationship with magic than most wizards, where you have to study but the magic in you is, is just too  _ much _ , like, you have limits you haven’t been able to find yet, and some things you just cast without thinking, without even wanting to, like your magic is a thinking thing bound to your instincts and it knows more than you do. You can use a spoon as a spellcasting focus which means you could have accidentally cast a spell every time you’ve used one, which is  _ every time you cook _ , and you can be as careful as you want but the only thing that’s been a constant in your life is ruined forever and oh, it shouldn’t feel like as much of a loss as it does but it  _ does _ , it feels like somebody’s punched a hole right through the middle of your chest, it feels like if you look down you’ll see blood leaking out of you in time with your heartbeat. It feels, for a moment, like you’ve lost everything.

You sit down on the floor very,  _ very _ calmly.

And you could’ve sworn that you put the umbrastaff on a shelf but it’s there when you put your hand - right hand, not the spoon hand - down to try and feel a little steadier, and you’re not thinking about it because if you were you wouldn’t bring it to your chest, curl your arms around it like a security blanket. You’re not saying it helps, but, well.

Angus sits down in front of you and just waits, legs crossed, both hands holding his wand in his lap.

After a minute you say, “Don’t tell anybody about this, yeah?”

And he says, “Definitely not.”

And you say, “Ever made puff pastry, kid?”

iv.

_ Kravitz _

Kravitz can’t actually die.

That’s a fact. Kravitz is a dead person, he can’t actually die. Also, you didn’t actually poison forty people, Sazed did. Also also, you have the no-sodium salt shaker which can just tell you straight-up whether the food’s fucked up or not.

This does nothing to change the fact that you’re standing in your kitchen before your third date with death, completely dressed up except for your lipstick, snarfing cupcakes  _ just in case _ you missed something. Because, obviously. This is just how you’re gonna be for the rest of your life, you guess. Fuckin fantastic.

You kinda saw this coming though, so your original, very extra plans aren’t falling through yet.

You didn’t actually account for Kravitz being early, though. Or for Merle letting him in  _ shit fuck goddamn son of a bitch _ .

So here’s the scene: Kravitz, a rational person, with perfect hair, a pressed and obviously-tailored suit, a goddamn cravat, standing a few feet away from you, Taako the goddamn fool, wearing a flouncy cocktail dress and heels, with icing on your nose and a cupcake in each hand.

You swallow, very deliberately. Put down the Mistake Cakes, which is what they’re called forever now. “Excuse me ooooone minute, my guy,” you say, calmly, and then escape to the bathroom.

So the problem here is less to do with the picture you painted down there and... well. It’s that you’ve been, mmm, a neurotic anxious mess, since you were a little kid, and you do  _ really well _ with not showing that to other people and you’ve done  _ really fucking well _ not showing that to Kravitz who just met you and who you could, maybe, possibly, really like, and everybody you’ve ever liked who’s gotten a good look at what a mess you are has either booked it or changed their tune so you had to cut them off and  _ goddammit _ . 

( _ Here’s something that you never forget - once, when you were younger, after the caravan days but before Sizzle It Up, a boy you dated briefly and were in the middle of breaking up with asked “Why can’t you just  _ pretend _ to be a person about this?” and you went home to your empty apartment and took stock of the fact that there was nobody in the world who gave a fuck about you and you cried on the couch by yourself and then moved on _ .)

So you’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub with both of your hands fisted in your hair when a voice, through the door, calls, “Taako?”

Kravitz. Seems like he’s still there. “Yeah?”

After a long pause, he says, “...Is this... about Glamour Springs?”

Your hands release of their own accord, and you tip your head back against the wall. Twist the fabric of the dress even though you know that’s gonna make it look fucked up later. “You know about that, huh.”

“Forty people died, Taako,” he says dryly, and you hear the muffled sounds of a back hitting the door and sliding down. “It’s my job to know. Are you alright?”

You could lie. You could lie, and you could make this blow over.

You curl your left hand around the handle of the umbrastaff, bring it up to your mouth, chew idly on a knuckle while the other hand scratches at that arm.

You think, in a voice that doesn’t quite sound like your usual internal voice,  _ you gotta stop lying sometime, T _ .

“I had like four panic attacks over trying to bake you a present, so, I mean,” you say casually, and you get to your feet and open the door.

Kravitz falls over the threshold with an impressive lack of grace, and his hair’s a little less perfect, and he left his jacket behind somewhere, and his cravat’s undone, and he’s the prettiest man you’ve seen in a damn long time, and you laugh helplessly as you ease yourself down to the floor.

He flashes half a smile, sharp teeth, eyes crinkling at the corners, as you settle down and lean over him. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Yep,” you reply, pop the word with relish. “Watcha gonna do about it?”

He raises an eyebrow, props himself up on an elbow - close, dangerously close - and says, whispers, breathes, “This, I think.”

You’re kinda glad you don’t have lipstick on.

After a minute he breaks away, licks his lips consideringly, says, “Mmm. Honey, chocolate, and coffee?”

“A good kisser  _ and _ good taste buds, where have they been keeping  _ you _ ?” you reply with a smirk, and he laughs and pulls you back in.

v.

_ Lup _

You’re twenty-seven years old and your twin broke an arm yesterday and you’re, well, kinda incompetent in the kitchen, because your grandfather is, nobody’s taught you what to do yet, but you feel… a little bad, because you’re the one who’s supposed to know better and you didn’t pay attention and no, she wouldn’t have listened to you if you had been, but it’s still this hard stone of guilt in your stomach, so.

So, you rooted through the pantry - benefits of living on a produce farm, hey - and dug out some jam and made some really,  _ really _ simple cookies that your mom used to make, and thinking about your mom is a raw wound but sometimes it’s okay, sometimes it’s good, and -

\- okay honestly what you’ve got looks like you tossed some cookies and a bunch of weird mashed up fruit on a plate. Which is what you did. But it’s something.

And Lup smiles when you sneak past your grandpa into your shared room, because she was banned from any, y’know,  _ good _ food, for being, in Gramps’s words,  _ a reckless little shit _ , but you weren’t gonna take  _ that _ lying down. Solidarity.

The two of you laugh, quiet, stifled, so you won’t get in trouble, and you turn a blanket into a wall so if Gramps comes in you can hide the evidence, and you are sticky fingers and teasing each other and jam in your hair and crumbs on and in everything and you are  _ safe _ and you are  _ home _ and you are  _ together  _ -

vi.

_ Lup _

You’re fifty-three and you’re hanging off the porch of the main building of your aunt’s sprawling tree-estate, heads tipped back, hair long and swinging gently in the breeze, and Lup is laughing at her own jokes and you are laughing too, and your fingers are tangled together - her left hand, your right - as you listen to the birds and the crickets and the slow, easy creak of wood.

And then she tugs you into sitting up, and she’s shifting and you’re shifting at the same time, until you’re facing each other, and she says, “Okay, I have an idea,” and she reaches for a plate balanced on the railing, sweet rolls your aunt had taught the two of you to make, the first batch that came out kind of okay, and she balances one, comically oversized, on her nose. “Race me,” she says, because she can’t not make a competition out of everything.

“This is a terrible idea,” you reply, as you do it. She cackles, and you can’t help but laugh with her.

She wins, because she always does, and laughs at you around a mouthful of bread and cinnamon-sugar, and you roll your eyes but laugh with her, and the two of you curl into each other, bumping foreheads, ears smacking, and you are  _ safe _ and you are  _ home _ and you are  _ together _ -

vii.

_ Lup _

You’re hip-checking each other in a cramped wagon kitchen and the air smells like soup and magic and you are homeless but you are  _ home _ -

viii.

_ Lup _

You’re lounging in your tiny shoebox of an apartment and you have reports due at the Institute in the morning but you’re tossing popcorn at each other and you are  _ safe _ -

ix.

_ Lup _

You’re standing at the window of the Starblaster while your world disappears still tasting the pancakes you made for breakfast and you look at her, she looks at you, and you are  _ together _ -

x.

_ Lucretia _

It’s the day of Story and Song and you remember and you are tasting a hundred years of stress-baked macarons, birthday cakes, wedding cakes, hot chocolate, the food on Tesseralia you could never replicate, the turkey you made your sister when she told you she needed a Best Day Ever, favorite dishes you did your best to imitate when people got homesick, a hundred years you lived and loved, a hundred years someone who was your friend, who was  _ family _ , stole out from under you, and you say, “Ten. Nine. Eight.” And you are shaking, and you are shaking, and you are  _ shaking _ , and you can taste elderberries.

xi.

_ Barry _

So: there’s not a damn thing that compares to forgetting Lup.

That was a hole in the head, swathes of your childhood blanked out, being a vastly powerful wizard who lost every spell he ever learned, every redeemable thing about you ground into dust, etcetera etcetera etcetera,  _ nothing compares to that _ .

Forgetting Barry was… the closest anything gets.

Which is, y’know,  _ disgustingly sappy, _ but, well - he was your best friend for the better part of a century. Lup doesn’t count in the way that your skin doesn’t count as your favorite accessory. Integral. Whatever. Barry was the first person on the crew that, like,  _ got _ you, which means he was one of the first people in general that did because you can be described as  _ hard to love _ by somebody who’s trying to be nice about it, it’s fine, you know, you know what you are, but you remember the beach, you remember a desert world where you’d gone off on your own all year, you remember three in the morning in the starblaster kitchen stress-baking, you remember the days after Lup disappeared, you remember that early on you’d said  _ you’re the only person on this nerd-boat that doesn’t make me feel like I have a screw loose _ .

That’s still, after everything, mostly true.

Point: you forgot your best friend for twelve years.

Also, you murdered him a little bit, which makes your skin crawl even if it was necessary.

So. He stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, the premature grey at his temples way more pronounced than you remembered, dark circles exactly as bad as you remembered, and you slide a mug and then a plate, in quick succession, across the counter, and he catches both because he’s super selectively dextrous, and then blinks uncomprehendingly a couple times and you can’t help but snicker.

“...hot chocolate and french toast,” he says, disbelievingly, and you’re blisteringly angry, for just a second, because you remember that your best friend and your sister haven’t had your cooking for over a decade, and then you let it go because you’re fixing one half of that and when Lup has a body again you’ll fix the other and you’re just petty enough that Lucretia doesn’t get your anger, today.

“Fuckin believe it, my man, we’re having a chill day,” you say with as much calm cheer as you can muster up. You settle into a chair with your own cup of cocoa and plate, relishing the calm, relishing the creeping delight on your best friend’s face at the memory of days off and stolen hours, the three of you -  _ the three of you _ was always you and Lup and Barry, it was a given - in the far corner of the lab, cushy couches and a dozen or so comfortable rugs and a scavenged tv and a couple cool lamps, which Barry had dubbed  _ the chillzone _ in the first decade and you never renamed. Lup was in an umbrella for twelve years, and Barry died like a bajillion times, and you basically had your brain dumped into a blender set on  _ puree _ , and fuck it if you three haven’t earned this. “Whatever Lulu’s doing tell her it’s cancelled, we’re making chill happen.” 

He laughs, and then sits across from you, and you force back a grin, and he says, gleefully, “This is gonna make me so sick, you asshole,” and then tips back the  _ world’s okayest necromancer _ mug that you dug out of the wreck of the starblaster. You wonder how long it’s gonna take him to notice. 

xii.

_ Merle _

You feel like… a huge doofus.

The thing is, you got invited to Merle’s weird public figure house that he somehow has because apparently trusting  _ Merle Highchurch _ to run a town is a good idea, sure, and you realized that you kinda don’t know his kids at all and then you were baking all of a sudden and Lup looked at you like  _ you’re a mess, T _ , but in an affectionate way so whatever, whatever, whatever.

You wouldn’t say it if somebody had a knife to your throat, but Merle kinda, sorta, maybe, became like a little bit of a surrogate dad over the course of a hundred years and  _ yeah _ , you know that’s a little pathetic, whatever, and your abandonment issues are showing because a very small part of you keeps thinking  _ if the kids hate me Merle’s never gonna talk to me again _ which is dumb because you’ve known him for a hundred years and he only has partial custody anyway, but. Still.

The big problem is you have… no idea what the kids like, so that’s how you ended up on Merle’s porch holding a really annoying number of fantasy tupperware containers. Kravitz and Lup and Barry, who have been uneasily cohabitating ( _ for your sake, you’re not a sap about it but you feel, like, a little warm _ ) and therefore watched the tupperware pile grow, look respectively shocked, delighted, and resigned. Magnus, who is just now seeing the chaos you have wrought, looks his particular Magnus-brand of awed, Davenport looks like he’s waiting for the earth to just swallow him so he can get some goddamned peace and quiet, and Lucretia probably looks some kind of way but you haven’t looked at her so you don’t know. 

( _ You’re still angry _ .)

Anyway.

The door opens and you are in front of the pack because you’re  _ stupid _ , and Mavis is standing there, all big eyes behind her glasses and eyebrows raised, and you just stay there for a second that feels like  _ a thousand fucking years _ . Why is she  _ looking _ at you,  _ fuck _ .

“Are those brownies?” Mavis asks.

You lift your fantasy tupperware stack so you can look at the one at her eye level. “Uh, yes. In that one.”

Mavis tilts her head, squints a little, and you are saved from whatever she’s about to say by Merle, somewhere deeper in the house, yelling, “ _ You brought brownies? _ ”

You laugh, despite yourself, call back, “Regular brownies, you oldass fucking stoner!”

“Don’t worry, Merle,  _ I  _ brought the  _ special  _ brownies,” Lup calls, leaning over your shoulder with one hand cupped around her mouth, and you take the opportunity to readjust your pile of baked goods and elbow her in the gut, but affectionately, and one of her ears smacks you in the nose, which you can’t prove wasn’t an accident, but you  _ know _ .

You inhale, exhale. You’ve got your family back.

You make a beeline past Mavis for the kitchen - Merle didn’t technically tell you where it was but you have the shittiest superpower and it is that you can find the kitchen in any given home - and start unpacking your pile of theatrical mistakes.

Okay, confession, you really only meant to make brownies. But you have a tendency to overthink everything, so then you thought that maybe the kids didn’t like chocolate, and you made sugar cookie bars, but then you thought maybe they didn’t want something chewy so you made gingersnaps, but  _ then  _ you thought that maybe cupcakes were the best way to go, so on and so forth, and the takeaway is that you made fifteen discreet desserts for two kids that you don’t know just because you got anxious about your relationship with somebody that you’ve, you cannot emphasize this enough, known for over a century and have been through hell multiple,  _ multiple _ times with, and the  _ real  _ takeaway is that you’re the worst.

So, yeah, you have some regrets. And right as you’re thinking that the force of chaos that is Mookie Highchurch skids into the room, so you have  _ a lot _ of regrets. 

It’s not that you don’t like kids, it’s that for the most part they don’t like you. Never have, even when you were one. There are always exceptions - Angus, for one - but for the most part anybody under the age of fourteen finds you weird and off-putting and the feeling’s largely mutual, so that’s how you end up looking at Mookie with what you’re sure is the facial expression of a rabbit as a fox’s teeth end up in its neck. Fuck. 

Mookie blinks twice, and then grins and runs at you and it takes a second to process the words coming out of his mouth which are, “Whadya get me whadya get me whadya get me!”

“Uhh,” you say, helplessly, and grab the most colorful container on the counter - when did you even  _ make _ unicorn bark, the last ten hours are an anxiety haze - and just hand him the whole thing and  _ that was a mistake _ .

His eyes go very, very big, and very, very round, and the last thing he says before he shoves a very large piece of pure chocolate and sprinkles directly into his mouth is, “T’anks, Uncle Taako!”

Well.

_ Well _ .

And the little shit uses your moment of  _ what the fuck _ to run off with the wholeass container before you manage to squeak out, “ _ Whom _ ?”

xiii.

_ Davenport _

Davenport took some time to figure himself out after the whole, y’know,  _ voidfished for twelve years _ thing. Which is fair and valid. You’re sure you would’ve done the same thing in his position - hell, if you hadn’t had a pressing need to keep everybody close you would’ve done the same thing in  _ your _ position, and you at least had some goddamn agency and awareness in the whole thing. Maybe you shouldn’t think about that too much.

Anyway.

What happened to Davenport makes  _ sense _ in the worst way - the IPRE didn’t pop out of nowhere when the Light fell, after all, Davenport grew up in the mission - it’s just another consequence of Lucretia not thinking through the domino effect of erasing shit, it’s the most goddamn unsettling parallel to what happened to you and  _ maybe stop thinking about that _ .

_ Anyway _ .

So, like, after a hundred years, even Davenport with his tight-lipped refusal to act like a friend instead of a captain most of the time has let a few facts and preferences slip, a few things he misses from home, so when you and Lup and Barry and Kravitz - who may not have been on the crew but has been, whether he likes it or not, absorbed into it - go to meet him at the dock he said he was resupplying at, you have a pastry box in one hand because like it or not you’ve missed Dav and his deadpan snark and his willingness to be as much of an asshole to you as you are to him.

It’s weird how things expressed themselves subconsciously when you didn’t remember, it’s weird how you fucked with Leon the Artificer and couldn’t name the feeling of wrongness when he didn’t metaphorically volleyball-spike the jackassery back at you. You’ve  _ missed _ Dav, okay.

So, anyway, the suspicious  _ what are you trying to pull _ look he levels at you on the dock is nostalgic in the absolute best way, and you’re not even trying to be mad that he assumes you’re up to bullshit because honestly, fair.

You hold out the box - and the other three look at it hawkishly because this is a secret, this was a  _ surprise _ , fuckin vultures - and Dav takes it warily.

You watch the expressions flicker on his face and try to hold back a smile - you’ve always loved cooking for people, you’ve  _ always _ loved watching people react to things you put effort into - he goes from confusion to surprise to fondness back to carefully-held calm, blinks a couple times and purses his lips. Opens his mouth and then closes it. You say, “I, ah, figured you wouldn’t be buying, like, snack-type stuff because you’re all practical or whatever, so I… made fig rolls? I remembered that you liked those, closest thing I can make to the cookie things that I never remember the name of.”

He snorts, and shakes his head sharply. You pretend he doesn’t sound like he’s about to cry, because it’s  _ polite _ , and you are a person with  _ manners _ . ( _ Shut up, Lup and Barry and Magnus and everybody else you know _ .) “You  _ know _ they’re called fig newtons, you liar.”

“Yeah, those!” you say, in what you know is your most infuriatingly chipper tone. Dav actually laughs this time, and closes the box back up - quick, precise motions, a consummate professional except when he’s a massive dork. You missed him.

He takes a very deep breath, nods at you, blinks a couple times and  _ ha _ , you knew you could make him cry, stoic composed captain your  _ ass _ , and you’re feeling smug as he tucks the box under his arm and starts talking to Lup and Barry and Kravitz. It’s good. It’s been months and months since you finally beat the Hunger, finally stopped running once and for all, and it’s so, so good.

ixx.

_ The Crew _

It’s not that the other people in your social circle weren’t  _ invited _ , it’s just that every single one of them had a convenient excuse to skip out, so it’s just the Starblaster crew curled up in your living room tonight. Even Kravitz said he had an important mission, which is  _ dumb _ , because your sister and best friend are his  _ coworkers _ , but  _ okay _ . 

So, anyway. You’re leaning over the back of the couch while everybody bickers good-naturedly about movies - there’s nothing new because this world doesn’t have them yet, which is a  _ travesty _ , so you’re stuck with the collection the seven of you had squirreled away on the ship, all of which you’ve all seen at least thirty times. Lup is  _ passionately _ pulling for a cheesy romantic one that you actually hate a  _ lot _ but you forgot how much she loved it and you’re full of fondness, which leaves Barry and Davenport to argue against it on grounds of the asinine dialogue makes them both want to throw things - Magnus, of course, is on Lup’s side, because he’s a sap. 

You cut off a point that Lup’s making by reaching out for her hand, and she laughs and grabs yours and you pull her towards you with a dramatic spin and then you’re both laughing and you’re hugging her and leaning your head against her side and this is good, this is so nostalgic it hurts. You’re getting used to being okay again, even if force of habit has you nervously cataloging everybody - Dav and Merle sharing an armchair because they can both fit in it, Magnus sitting on the floor in front of the tv, Barry at the end of the couch -

\- Lucretia leaning against the wall near the kitchen doorway. You almost forgot she was there, she’s been so quiet, just standing there sipping cocoa out of a mug you remember picking up for her in, what, the third decade? Her hands are blocking the  _ truly awful _ pun on it, but you recognize the splotchy blue and purple glaze.

So here’s the thing.

You’re still angry.

You’re probably never going to stop being angry - intentions aside, what she did was awful and it fucked you up pretty bad and you’re not  _ obligated _ to forgive that. You don’t know if you ever will.

But here’s the other thing.

Yeah, when she made you forget she - inadvertently or not - erased your twin, and that was the worst, and Lup’s always been your number one, and that’s never going to change. But, after a hundred years… you have two sisters, really. 

And that’s not changing, either. 

“Hey, Cretia,” you say, and Lup jumps, and everybody shuts up for a second. Lucretia just blinks, and looks at you, raises one eyebrow. “These assholes have terrible taste in movies, come save us.”

Another slow blink. You feel like you’re on a tightrope - it could go either way. She peels herself off the wall, all dignified, and everybody else starts talking - mostly yelling at you for being a dick - but she ignores them, ruffles Magnus’s hair on her way past and decisively grabs a dvd out of the giant pile and pops it in. You inhale, exhale. Baby steps.

The rest of the crew give up the great movie debate, and it’s nostalgic in the best way as you all slide back into old movie night positions - you scoot over so you’re in the middle of the couch, and Lup vaults over the back of it to curl up against one of the arms, and Barry ends up squished between the two of you, laughing a laugh that’s a little too close to maniacal, and Magnus gets up and flops down on the other end of the couch, immediately bogarting the popcorn, and Dav gets up to hit the lights while Merle lights a joint, and Lucretia is still just standing there, like she’s waiting for something.

Everyone’s changed, physically and mentally, from the people you were when the ship launched. Magnus has tempered, from overconfident asshole kid to a man you’re just... genuinely proud to know. Davenport learned and then re-learned that he doesn’t need to be perfect for people to respect him as a captain and a person. Merle’s found his place in the world, and just because he’s old as shit doesn’t make that any less important. Barry’s just as tired and awkward but it doesn’t take being his best friend for a century to see that he’s happy. And yeah, it’s not a secret that you and Lup learned to rely on people that aren’t the two of you, that that’s  _ personal growth _ or whatever.

And Lucretia’s grown into the leader and self-assured person she always could have been, but right now she looks like the anxious kid pulled in to write about other people’s discoveries, and it… feels bad. You’re not obligated to forgive her, and you can be as angry as you want, but there’s a big part of you that’s always going to care, and you might as well just accept that. “Sit down, you dweeb. Have a cookie, nobody else likes elderberry as much as you do.”

She opens her mouth, closes it. Swallows visibly. “There’s no accounting for taste,” she says mildly, and rounds the coffee table to settle between you and Magnus - straight-backed Madame Director posture as she grabs a macaron, it’s kinda hilarious, you make a mental note to send her home with some because she never eats enough when she’s working too hard. You make eye contact with Magnus, who grins and then tugs her by the shoulders into his chest, and you sling your feet into her lap, and she says, “Oh, you  _ assholes _ ,” but she’s smiling, and everybody laughs.

And you close your eyes, leaning back into Barry, holding Lup’s hand, enjoying the sound of Magnus gasping at plot events he knows by heart, and Davenport shushing him, and Merle’s snickering, and Lucretia shifts so she can tuck her legs under yours and you know without looking that she’s laying across Magnus, and you smell your own baking, and know that in a few hours Kravitz is coming home and once everybody else leaves the two of you will retreat to your room and sleep - not because you need to, but for the giddy satisfaction of waking up together after the end of the world, and you are  _ home _ , and you are  _ safe _ , and you are all, finally, for the first time in a long time,  _ together _ . 

xx.

_ Taako _

Here’s a secret. You didn’t feel the need to test your cooking, tonight. 

**Author's Note:**

> So. First of all - if you like my Taako characterization, feel free to pop over and listen to Stolen Stolen Century by Southspinner, which is an actual-play fancast I co-dm and play Taako in! We're trying to fill in the gaps in canon and play through all one hundred cycles, and honestly, our crew has characterization down pat, if I do say so myself.
> 
> Now: food notes.
> 
> i - I know Justin said elderflower in the podcast. I know. but the coloration and flavor of elderberry fit Lucretia's aesthetic better, so much like macaron vs. macaroon, I've taken creative license.  
> ii - I actually have a recipe for hot chocolate that I made specifically because it seemed like how Taako would make hot chocolate. Yeah. If you want the details, hit me up, it's spiced and super rich.  
> iii - "Ears" are cinnamony puff pastry cookies, based on and named for mexican orejas. You can find recipes lots of places, though if you want to do what Taako was going for you'll have to fiddle with adding citrus zest to your pastry.  
> iv - Kravitz likes coffee, chocolate, and honey because my girlfriend has a mocha and honey toast for breakfast most of the time and now i'm never going to be able to disassociate either flavor from curling up with her first thing in the morning. Which fits, because we're very taakitz in general.  
> v - Tiny Taako's cookies are the cookie version of norwegian christmas butter bars, which are in fact super easy to make, and delicious with fruit.  
> vi - I pulled from pan dulce again because you will pry mexican-coded Taako & Lup out of my cold dead hands, they're eating cinnamon conchas here.  
> xi - The french toast is also based off my own recipe - it's thick-sliced and baked in maple syrup, and my roommates will attest that it's a delicious mistake. Again, if you want deets hit me up.  
> xiii - Just about ever Davenport headcanon I love is from my friend Ashley's brain, and that includes this - that Davenport comes from a huge affectionate family of rocket scientists who all really love fig newtons. Thanks, Ash.
> 
> Have a great day everybody, thanks for indulging my Pastry Angst.


End file.
